


Altered State Theory

by ficthepainaway



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: (attempted), Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, Hypnotism, No Relationships…but Strains of Jacob/Everybody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 10:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7841794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficthepainaway/pseuds/ficthepainaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If that prat Enzio Capelli can do it, anyone can do it. Jacob steals the man's pocket watch and gives hypnotism a go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Altered State Theory

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Charles Dickens Memories: "Hell's Bells" and "Recollection."
> 
> Thanks to [LivaWilborg](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LivaWilborg/pseuds/LivaWilborg) for betaing!

"Look what I got today," Jacob says, opening his palm. Evie glances up from her book and rests her eyes on the silver pocket watch of Enzio Capelli, wanker supreme. Jacob had lifted the timepiece as he stuffed Enzio into a carriage to deliver him to Scotland Yard.

"A watch." Evie looks back at her book and comments, "You've never been much for timekeeping. Or timeliness. Turning over a new leaf, Jacob?"

"Oh, this isn't for timekeeping, dear sister," Jacob says. He turns his hand over and lets the chain unfurl, the watch bouncing at the end. "It's for _hypnotism_."

Evie raises an eyebrow. "Of course it is," she deadpans.

Swinging the watch experimentally, Jacob asks, "Will you let me test it on you?"

"No." Evie crosses one leg over the other and pivots in the chair to face away from Jacob. She dismisses him with, "Come find me whenever you've returned to serious endeavors."

—

"You are so very, very tired," Jacob intones, the reflection of the dangling watch glinting on Ned's glasses. "Aren't you, my child?"

"You have no idea," Ned says, unaffected. He sidesteps Jacob to open the escritoire in the corner of the room, then drops a stack of papers on the fall front with a _thud_. "Why are you talking like that?"

"The key to hypnotism is sounding Italian," Jacob explains. He bobs his head, considering. "I think."

"Italian?" Ned echoes. He starts shuffling the papers on the escritoire and, not looking up, adds, "Was that the accent you were doing just now?"

Jacob narrows his eyes and mutters, "Why, what did it sound like?"

"It…you know, it defied categorization." Jacob slumps. "Kind of like you, Frye." Jacob perks back up. "So, hypnotism? Is that a new Assassin technique you've picked up?"

"Just a hobby," Jacob replies, sing-song. He leans on Ned's escritoire and starts waving the pocket watch again. "I practiced in the mirror, but I don't think it works that way. Can I try it on you?"

Ned stops fussing with the papers—invoices, shipping manifests, an infinite sum of numbers and tables and signatures—and looks up at Jacob with a crooked grin. "All right, big fella." Ned straightens up and crosses his arms, feet apart. "Hit me."

Jacob scrambles into an upright position and holds up the watch, twitching his hand until it starts to sway. He waves his other hand in circles, like he remembers Enzio doing, and croons, "You are so very, very sleepy…aren't you, my child?"

"I am," Ned admits. "If they'd told me how much organizing went into organized crime, I may have never started down this immoral path." He cocks his head, eyes on Jacob's. Jacob clears his throat and jerks his chin at the pocket watch. Ned takes the cue and fixes his eyes there instead.

"Now," Jacob starts again, "you're going to do a little job of work for me. Aren't you?"

Gaze oscillating with the motion of the pocket watch, Ned asks, "Well, how's the pay?" Jacob drops his arms, defeated. The watch dangles wildly at his side, metal clacking against the buttons on his overcoat.

"It's not working," he groans. Ned shakes his head, not even bothering to look sorry for it. Jacob reels the watch up and says, "I think I need to try it with someone who's a little…weaker-willed."

—

"Freddy!" Jacob booms, holding his hands out as he passes through the doorway.

Freddy glances up from where he's hunched over his desk, just for a second. He looks back down before greeting Jacob with a long (arguably overlong) sigh. "Jacob, this is a workplace. A station house plastered with wanted posters that bear your description. So barging in here is both rude and unwise."

Jacob smirks and sidles up to the desk, then turns to sit on its edge. He leans back on one hand (Freddy scrambles to move some knickknacks out of the way) and asks, "Are you saying you'd prefer that I barge into your home?"

"No."

'No.' Jacob's been hearing that a lot lately. He spins on the desk, fishing Enzio Capelli's pocketwatch from his overcoat as he goes. "Jesus, Jacob," Freddy snarls, tugging a stack of papers out from beneath Jacob's crossed calves.

Jacob holds up the watch. Since practicing with his last mark, Jacob thought back to Capelli's technique and recalled that he didn't swing the watch from its chain. Rather, he held the watch by the bow as he moved it back and forth. Jacob replicates that motion now, saying, "You are so very, very tired—aren't you, my child?"

"Tired of _you_ ," Freddy grumbles. He's angled his chair away and is determinedly smoothing the wrinkles out of the documents Jacob sat on before.

Jacob rolls his eyes. "You are very much mistaken, aren't you, my child?"

Freddy turns his head, brow furrowed and lips parted to snap back at Jacob, but when his eyes land on the pocket watch, his face goes slack. _Success_ , Jacob thinks. He presses on: "Now you're going to do a little job of w—"

"You need to wind that watch," Freddy says, flat. He plucks the watch out of Jacob's hands, easy as you please, and asks, "Do you have the key?"

Jacob blinks. "What?"

"It's no matter, I'm sure I have a match." Freddy opens a drawer on his desk and pulls out a leather case. He unfolds to reveal an assortment of tweezers and pliers and screwdrivers and a dozen other instruments Jacob couldn't name. "You know, key-wind watches aren't very common these days. Understandably, because stem-wind watches have mainsprings of better quality steel, which allows for a more even release of power to the escape mechanism."

Jacob blinks again. "What?"

Freddy draws a small case-knife from his assortment of clockmakers' tools. He's examining the seams of the pocket watch when he says, "Oh, there's an engraving. 'To W.H., for changing minds.'" Freddy goes quiet a beat, wiggling his case-knife between two fingers. Then the knife-wiggling stops.

"Jacob." Jacob holds his breath. "Is this the missing pocket watch of Walt Hilliard, alias Enzio Capelli?" Freddy asks through his teeth.

Jacob laughs, a tad squeakier than usual, then uses both hands to wrestle the watch out of Freddy's suddenly vice-like grip.

" _Jacob_."

Jacob hops nimbly off the desk. "Thanks for the visit, Freddy." 

"Jacob, that is evidence in an ongoing investigation!"

"Have a lovely evening!" Jacob calls as he hurtles through the window and into the twilight.

—

Jacob's in the little shed that serves as a changing room at his favorite Whitechapel fight club, toweling off a tacky combination of sweat, blood, rainwater, and mud. The door bangs open and he readies himself for another round—fighters or gamblers come looking for revenge—but it's just Robert Topping making a grand entrance, as he is wont to do.

"Your winnings, milord," Robert warbles, holding out a fat handful of banknotes.

Jacob takes the money and matches Robert's rich tone when he replies, "I thank you, good sir." Robert sweeps off his hat and starts backing out of the shed. But before he makes his exit, Jacob blurts, "Wait! Robert, you're an…open-minded sort of fellow, right?"

Robert stops short, still bent in his little half-bow. "My mum says that opening your mind can be like opening Pandora's box," Robert says. He straightens up, tips his top hat back onto his head, and concludes, "But she and I don't always agree."

"Great," Jacob returns. He slaps his towel over his bare shoulder with one hand and reaches for his vest with the other. "I recently acquired an object of certain psychic power, and I'm trying to perfect its applications." He waves the pocket watch in front of Robert, who smiles—big and fizzy.

"Ooh, mesmerism!" he cries, clapping his hands twice. "Count me in." Jacob grins, victorious.

"All right." Jacob lifts the watch in front of Robert's face and starts waving it rhythmically back and forth. "You are so very, very tired—aren't you, my child?"

Robert's eyes are on the watch, and his head bobs a little, like a dog tracking a piece of meat. "I am so very, very tired," he says, through a yawn.

That's promising. Trying to keep his excitement from showing on his face, Jacob continues, "Now. You're going to do a little job of work for me. Aren't you?"

When Robert replies, it's at a quarter of his usual volume—so, just below a normal person's speaking voice. "Yes—a little job of work."

It's really too bad Jacob hadn't thought ahead about what to request. He glances around their surroundings and stammers, "Y-you're going to…you're going to give me the rest of tonight's profit, aren't you?"

Robert slumps, sighs, then fixes his gaze straight on Jacob's eyes. "I'm afraid that's one thing I cannot do, milord."

Jacob slumps and sighs too. He thought he had this one.

"Had you asked me for a cartwheel, a carriage ride—" Robert holds a hand alongside his mouth conspiratorially, "—a _kiss_ , I would have played along. But my purse is one thing I cannot part with."

—

"Henry Green," Jacob enunciates, hanging on every syllable. "Assassin. Academic. Entrepreneur."

Henry shoots him a quick smile. "Good evening, Jacob."

Jacob shuts the curio shop door behind him and strides into the rich, dark room, saluting the stuffed bear as he passes it. "Greenie, for all these months I've depended on you to know…things." Jacob lays the pocket watch on the counter. "So I hope you know some things about hypnotism."

"Hypnotism?" Henry repeats, surprised. "I…can't say that I do. Of course, I understand it's a state of mental concentration and progressive relaxation that is not unlike meditation practices found throughout Asia, but—"

"So you're an expert," Jacob fills in. "Brilliant, I knew you would be. Can you teach me?"

Henry shakes his head, smiling again. "I'm not an expert, Jacob, truly. I've never attempted hypnosis."

"What about the other thing?" Jacob asks. He waves his hand, searching for the word. "Meditation. Can you meditate me?" "That's not how—"

" _Greenie_." Jacob strikes a balance between a glower and a pout.

Henry presses his lips into a thin line. He sighs and says, "Come, sit on the sofa."

Jacob does, sitting with his knees together and his hands folded in his lap, looking the part of attentive schoolboy. Henry pulls a chair directly across from him and settles in.

"Now focus and try to—feel my words. Does that make sense?" Jacob nods eagerly. Henry pauses, searching for how to start, then: "Everything here is safe. Calm. Peaceful. Relax your muscles and let yourself sink into the sofa."

"Wait!" Jacob interrupts. He points at the countertop. "The watch. You should use the watch."

Henry looks over his shoulder, then stands to fetch the timepiece where Jacob had left it. "This is a nice watch," he murmurs, turning it over.

"Mm, that's what Freddy said too before he went after me for 'stealing evidence.'" Jacob shakes his shoulders, then goes a little limp. "Back to relaxation."

Henry pauses to consider the watch in his palm before moving on. "Now we're going to focus on your breathing, on taking deep breaths. With me. Breathe in deeply, filling your chest…" Jacob does, chest puffing like a robin's. "Now slowly let the air out, completely emptying your lungs." Jacob does that too, shoulders sagging.

"Rest your eyes on the watch," Henry instructs, holding the pocket watch up high. "Let your eyes and eyelids relax. If they grow heavy, you can close them." Jacob nods a little, lids drooping but pupils fixed steadily on his pilfered pocket watch. "Now relax your toes. Your feet. Let go of these muscles, then relax your calves. Thighs." Henry keeps going, up and up until he has Jacob relaxing his jaw, his forehead. Then back down—his back, his shoulders, his arms, his fingers. "Let yourself slip deeper and deeper into calm and peace. Sink down and down. The deeper you go, the deeper you are able to go. And the deeper you go, the deeper you want to go."

Jacob hasn't spoken in some time. His eyes are half-shut and hazy, his slouch even more pronounced now than when he reclines on the lumpy chaise longue on the train.

"Jacob?" Henry ventures, quiet.

Jacob grunts something inaudible.

"Jacob?"

Another grunt.

Henry glances around the shop, like someone might be eavesdropping, or like Jacob might be playing a joke.

Growing up in the Punjab, Henry's family hadn't been particularly religious, though he had been exposed to Simran and Muraqaba—and meditative practices adapted from both. But he had told the truth about knowing nothing about hypnotism…which doesn't explain how he appears to have hypnotized Jacob Frye.

He lifts a hand to shake Jacob out of the trance, then pauses. Is there any good that could come from the supposed power of suggestion inherent to hypnotism? Henry could tell Jacob to slow his drive for cross-strata devastation in London, or to stop taunting Evie about her and Henry's relationship—but both of those requests seem too big, too contrary to Jacob Frye's persona to take hold. So he tries something simpler.

"I want you to take this watch back to Sergeant Abberline, and abandon the desire to practice hypnotism." Jacob doesn't move, doesn't respond. Henry strains to remember something, anything he's read about how to successfully break a trance.

A bell! The defamed Enzio Capelli—who Henry suspects was the original owner of this watch—sent people on their way with a bell.

Henry gently sets the pocket watch in Jacob's hands, where they rest palm-up and gently curled in his lap, then strides over to the shop door, equipped with a bell. "Wake up at the bell, please?" he says, uncertain, then pushes the door open.

Immediately, Jacob snaps to, looking around curiously.

"Jacob?" Henry says again.

"Henry Green," Jacob coos, smiling bright. He gets up from the couch and strolls over to him, casual. "Assassin. Academic. Entrepreneur. Listen, I wish I could stay and chat, but I have to drop this off with Freddy. And you know how he gets when you break into his flat after dark."

Henry clears his throat. "I can't say that I do."

"Shoot-y," Jacob supplies. "Threat-y. Anyway, I'm off. See you soon, Greenie." Jacob waves the hand holding the watch and strides out onto the street, whistling.

Henry eases the door shut behind him and waits for the trap to be sprung, the punchline to be delivered. It doesn't come.


End file.
